The annual visit to the school by the district inspector was coming up and so naturally our teacher wanted to present his pupils to him in the best way possible.
During his visit the inspector was required to access each student’s competency level and determine if they were performing well enough to go into a higher grade the following year.
One of the tests was to see if the students could write well, and to do that each kid had their own Copybook that they would write in.
If you could write well and got a mark greater than eight you would get a special merit stamp –anything less was an ordinary stamp.
I had a very steady hand and wanted to write well so I could impress my teacher and the inspector.
I was fortunate enough to get a special merit stamp for each of the three lines on the first page and was very proud to show it off.
On each desk there were inkwells that were used to dip the nib of your pen into to collect ink for writing.
The teacher would hand out blotting paper so you could remove any excess ink from the tip of your pen and if you managed to do that skilfully enough then I believe that was the secret to good writing.
As the inspector approached my desk to check my writing skills, and as much as I was excited to show off my three special merits, I was panicking at the same time because I just remembered that a few weeks earlier, when we were tasked with writing in our books, I got angry at my teacher and set about scribbling on the second page. I convinced myself the inspector would ask me to turn the page. How was I going to explain the scribble?
But thankfully he didn’t ask me to turn the page and much to my relief he congratulated me for doing such good work.
Garry Sonny Martin 